|
EDWARD ELGAR
Elgar: Overtures Scottish National Orchestra / Sir Alexander Gibson [ Chandos Collect / CD - released 20/Sep/2002 ] "energetically played, vividly recorded " (Fanfare) |
|
EDWARD ELGAR
Elgar: Cello Concerto / etc Sheku Kanneh-Mason (cello), London Symphony Orchestra, Sir Simon Rattle [ Decca / CD - released 31/Jan/2020 ] Award-winning British cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason returns with Elgar, a brand new album of works anchored around Elgar's Cello Concerto - arguably the best-known work in the classical canon written for solo cello. |
|
GIUSEPPE VERDI
Verdi: Otello (complete opera recorded in 2009) Simon O'Neill, Gerald Finley, Anne Schwanewilms / London Symphony Chorus & London Symphony Orchestra, Sir Colin Davis [ LSO Live SACD / 2 Hybrid SACD - released 15/Oct/2010 ] "O'Neill is an unusual Otello in that he is so unequivocally a tenor, with no hint of baritone in his timbre...the playing is alert and sensitive to drama and text." Gramophone Award Finalist 2011 - Opera |
|
Wagner, Ri
Die Walküre /I. Aufzug Sir Georg Solti [ ORFEO / CD - released 21/Oct/1999 ] |
|
WILLIAM MATHIAS
Ave Rex, A Carol Sequence / Elegy for a Prince / This WorldeAEs Joie Sir Geraint Evans (bass-baritone) Janet Price (soprano) Kenneth Bowen (ten) / The Bach Choir / London Symphony Orchestra / New Philharmonia Orchestra [ Lyrita / CD - released 20/Aug/2008 ] "Willcocks and Atherton conduct with vigour and care for detail, and the recordings are admirably clean" Gramophone |
|
SCHUMANN
Schumann: Symphonies Nos 1 & 3 Sir John Eliot Gardiner London Symphony Orchestra [ LSO / CD - released 21/Feb/2020 ] The second album in Sir John Eliot Gardiner's Schumann series with the London Symphony Orchestra travels from glorious fanfare to dream-like passages with the lively Spring and Rhenish symphonies. From the dramatic first trumpet-call which awakens... |
|
WILLIAM WALTON
Richard III: A Shakespeare Scenario / Major Barbara: A Shavian Sequence / etc Sir John Gielgud (narrator) / Academy of St Martin in the Fields / Sir Neville Marriner [ Chandos / CD - released 30/Nov/2007 ] Among the sumptuous and deeply romantic music on this disc is the substantial selection from Walton's score for Richard III; colourful and richly detailed music, the suite is conducted by Sir Neville Marriner and makes a fitting tribute to William... |
|
WALTON
Richard III: A Shakespeare Scenario / Major Barbara: A Shavian Sequence Sir John Gielgud (narrator) / Academy of St.Martin-in-the-Fields / Neville Marriner [ Chandos Classics / CD - released 1/Sep/2007 ] 'The Chandos series of William Walton Film Music is simply and obviously certain to be a great classic of recording art. It serves all the higher purposes of truly distinguished record-making: not only are all aspects of performance and recording... |
|
WALTON
Hamlet: A Shakespeare Scenario / As you Like it: A Poem for Orchestra Sir John Gielgud (narrator) Catherine Bott (soprano) / Academy St Martins / Neville Marriner [ Chandos Classics / CD - released 1/Sep/2007 ] "Marriner and the Academy draw out all the romantic warmth of both scores, and the sound is richly atmospheric to match, with a sharper focus and a keener sense of presence than on some recordings from this source. The Hamlet music may not match... |
|
SCHUBERT
Schubert: Swansong Sir John Tomlinson (bass), Christopher Glynn (piano), Sophie Bevan (soprano), Juian Bliss (clarinet), Alec Frank-Gemmill (horn) [ Signum / CD - released 12/Oct/2018 ] Christopher Glynn continues his series of late Schubert song cycles in English, joined by celebrated soloists Sir John Tomlinson, Sophie Bevan, Julian Bliss and Alec Frank-Gemmill. Titled by the works first publisher following Schubert's death,... |
|
BARTOK
Duke Bluebeard's Castle, Sz. 48, Op. 11 Sir John Tomlinson, Michelle DeYoung & Juliet Stevenson (narrator) / Philharmonia Orchestra & Philharmonia Voices, Esa-Pekka Salonen [ Signum Classics / CD - released 3/Jun/2014 ] An unforgettable live-concert recording, selected from the Philharmonia Orchestra and Esa- ekka Salonen's season of works by Béla Bartók - 'Infernal Dance'. |
|
HANDEL / HOLST / ROSSINI / SIBELIUS / VAUGHAN WILLIAMS / etc
Icon: Malcolm Sargent - The Great Recordings Sir Malcolm Sargent (conductor) with Isobel Baillie, Gladys Ripley, James Johnston, Norman Walker, etc [ Warner Classics / EMI Icon / 18 CD Box Set - released 1/Aug/2015 ] Malcolm Sargent's reputation as one of the great popularisers of classical music in Britain arose not only through his long association with the Henry Wood Promenade Concerts (1947-67), but was in evidence much earlier through chief conductorships of... |
|
KEATS / WORDSWORTH / SHELLEY / COLERIDGE / BYRON / BLAKE
Poetry of the English Romantics Sir Ralph Richardson / Sir Cedric Hardwicke / Tyrone Power / Vincent Price [ Forum / 3 CD Box Set - released 9/Aug/2013 ] Sir Ralph Richardson, Sir Cecile Hardwicke, Vincent Price and Tyrone Power read the poetry of the English Romantics |
|
LEONARD BERNSTEIN
Bernstein: Wonderful Town Kim Criswell, Audra McDonald, Thomas Hampson / Birmingham Contemporary Music Group, London Voices, Sir Simon Rattle [ Warner Original Jacket Recordings / CD - released 15/Feb/2018 ] An enormous success at the time, with a Broadway run of 559 performances, Wonderful Town shows off the talents of Bernstein, Comden and Green, who wrote the songs against the clock in just four weeks. Whether it's jazz, cod-Irish, ragtime, ballad or... |
|
ANTON BRUCKNER
Bruckner: Symphony No. 9 (2LP) Sir Simon Rattle & Berliner Philharmoniker [ Warner Classics LP / 2 LP - released 23/Aug/2024 ] Bruckner was working on the Ninth Symphony until the day he died. He left a stark and magnificent torso that marks the end of the 19th-century symphony - but he also left fragments and sketches for a magnificent finale that would cap his life's work.... |
|
GUSTAV MAHLER
Mahler: Symphony No. 5 Sir Simon Rattle & Berliner Philharmoniker [ Warner Classics / 2 LP - released 23/Aug/2024 ] In 1999, Sir Simon Rattle was appointed as successor to Claudio Abbado as the Berliner Philharmoniker's principal conductor. He gave his first concert as principal conductor on 7 September 2002, leading performances of Gustav Mahler's Symphony no.5... |
|
BARTOK / STRAVINSKY / BERNSTEIN / SHOSTAKOVICH / MAHLER / R. STRAUSS / etc
Orchestral Music in the 20th Century Sir Simon Rattle, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, with Felicity Palmer, Gidon Kremer, Anne Sofie von Otter, Willard White, etc [ Arthaus Musik DVD / 7 DVD Box Set - released 1/Jan/1999 ] "The series was one of the last intelligent contributions to classical music by British television and, even by 1996, one suspects that only a musician of Rattle's stature and determination could have got it made." Gramophone |
|
BEETHOVEN
Beethoven: Christ on the Mount of Olives Sir Simon Rattle, Elsa Dreisig, Pavol Breslik, David Soar, London Symphony Orchestra [ LSO Live SACD / CD - released 13/Nov/2020 ] Composed in 1803, while Beethoven was also writing the 'Eroica' Symphony, Christ on the Mount of Olives (Christus am Ölberge) is the composer's only oratorio, and combines the emotive force of his later Missa Solemnis with the theatre of a Bach... |
|
JOSEPH HAYDN
Haydn: An Imaginary Orchestral Journey Sir Simon Rattle, London Symphony Orchestra [ LSO / CD - released 2/Feb/2018 ] Sir Simon Rattle pays homage to a composer he holds close to his heart with An Imaginary Orchestral Journey through the music of Joseph Haydn. Rattle trawls through the great composer's impressive catalogue, piecing together excerpts from symphonies,... |
|
CLAUDE DEBUSSY
Debussy: Pelléas et Mélisande (complete opera) Christian Gerhaher, Magdalena Kožená, Bernarda Fink, Franz-Josef Selig / London Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, Sir Simon Rattle [ LSO Live SACD + BLU-RAY AUDIO / 4 Hybrid SACD - released 6/Dec/2017 ] "Rattle maintains both a clear pulse in individual scenes and a through line which positively celebrates Debussy's and Maeterlinck's radical intercutting of scenes of varied physical and emotional locations in the central acts." Gramophoe |